Life — November 1, 1883 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LIFE: tosses and swirls a boy’s kite; he chuckles at the thought that his old friend is none the worse for its mad gambols. But hatters raise an outcry against the habit of wearing old hats. Of course, for hatters are money- getters, not philosophers. The world would thrive better were there fewer hatters and more philosophers. An old hat is never a badge of poverty, but sets penury at defiance, and is a fitting rebuke to false ride that struts about in a threadbare coat, and spends its last bank=note for a new hat in a feeble and futile effort to affect the mien of a gentleman. The notion that gentlemen should wear the latest style of dress hats, and that old hats, after serving as targets for pop-guns and bean-shooters, should be consigned to garrets whence they may be doled out to tramps and rag-peddlers, is a priggish whim and fit theme for the satirist’s pen and the caricaturist’s pencil. Some day it will be demonstrated that wisdom encases its head in an old hat, and that folly hides its ass’s ears under the gaudy head-covering prescribed by fashion. It may be the day is not far distant when it will be the fashion to wear old hats, and some unborn D'Orsay or Beau Brummel will dismiss the rag-picker and old- hat man from his door with a cuff and a kick, while fashionable hatters will clear off their shelves, put up their shutters and engage in a less precarious occupa- tion. And_ how tenderly a man cares for the old hat which has sheltered his head from the storms of many winters! He invests it with the spirit of romance. As a traveler treasures his stick carved with names and dates, mottoes and inscriptions, so a lover of the zsthetic in hats lingers over his old chapeau, the sou- venir of departed days and a silent witness of the festal scenes that have graced life's pathway. He loves to watch it atilt the shoulder of a high-backed chair, sitting by his fireside in the twilight of a winter evening, or to remove it gently from its lonesome peg onthe wall, cock it into fantastic shapes and tip it deferentially to the ghosts of by-gone friends and troops of phantom ladies. Wind and rain may beat upon its gable; dust may settle in the creases and indentations left by Time’s gaunt and bony finger ; moths may snuggle in its soft folds, and may be less binding on its frayed edge than Susan Fisher found on Lucy Locket’s lost pocket ; but an old hat is a hat for a’ that, and it more suitably adorns the head of a gentleman than the noodle of a tramp. Harotp Van Santvoorp. Tue coming man.—The procrastinator. A Faux pas.—Her father. ENTRE nous.—He too. Tuat he who runs may read.—The score-board. Turoucu thick and thin.—A Boston east-wind. THE wrong man in the write place.—The inefficient clerk, As Goop.as gold.—Gould’s cheque. A SUSCEPTIBLE BACHELOR. “ So Arthur, you say you 're not married,— Susceptible boy that you are ? The rest of us, while you have tarried, Have patronized Hymen’s gay car : Ten years since we left the old college— They tell me you ’re rising to fame ; Yet, with all your accession of knowledge, Your affections remain just the same.” “ Old fellow, I'll make explanation : I'm tired of this lone bachelor life, And really do n’t find reputation A full substitute for a wife. Now, gentle affection is one thing— A sensation I often enjoy— But an indescribable something Is lacking in that, my dear boy. “ There's Nell, whom I take to the opera,— Fine figure, blue eyes and light hair— She’s equally nice for a hop, or a Téte-d-téte on the front stair ; There 's Hattie, so very artistic, Gentle Jane, and the gay Eleanor, Leamed Prudence, who ’s quite atheistic,— And all the rest of a score :— “ All charming—and really I love them ; Would wed any one—for a time ; Yet, if married life did not improve them, Would long for a happier clime. Each is fine for the mood or occasion ; But for ever ?—the risk is too great. I repel matrimonial invasion And remain in my bachelor estate. “What of Belle—bright country-born maiden— The sweetheart of old college days ? Even now boy Fancy is laden With dreams of her lovable ways ; All the rest are but toys of the dance, sir; Dear Belle, a companion for life : Your hand ;—now I'll whisper my answer— She has promised to be my true wife.” Ropert Brinoes. comicbooks.com